Personality type and social media: Is blog more ‘diplomacy’-friendly than twitter and facebook?

We have been transferring a considerable part of our social life to social media spaces and I wonder if we’ve taken the time to examine the relationship between our personality and social media? What is the ideal social medium for our personality? Intuition says that if you like sharing and making quick reflections, you should go for Twitter. If you are the conversational type, you should go for Facebook. And if you are a more reflective person, you should write blogs. But is there any more solid data and research that can support this intuitive thinking?

Recently, US military supported a comprehensive research comparing personality test (big five) and Facebook interaction. The research finds a high level of correlation between personality types and the use of Facebook. Extroverted people have many Facebook friends but few exchanges. The opposite applies to introverted people (a limited circle of friends with intensive communication).

Is there a professionally preferable social media? For diplomats, it is probably blogging. Diplomats are very cautious about written communication and the ambiguous writings that could be developed in short tweets or in Facebook conversations.

I would assert that it is difficult to generalize since all the social media platforms are evolving so rapidly. At one time, I would have said – stay clear of facebook for professional communication of this type, but now that you can create targetted groups I am not sure this still holds true.

I am not sure if I agree about your assertion about twitter. I know many UK government departments, and other UN agencies, that use twitter quite effectively. The secret is to link to longer articles (perhaps blogs) when it is necessary to expand on the topic under discussion. I think you need to use the tool which is most appropriate for a particular message and target audience.

First of all, I would add LikedIn to the list of social media. People say that it is kind of a Facebook for serious, business people.

Then, it looks like all 3 (4) can be interconnected, and many use them all. It depends on time one wants to commit to the social media. Another distinction is between those who think that they have something to say and those that would like to hear something.

I think I don’t have enough time for all of them – so I skipped Facebook.

quite interesting, until I read that it was the USDoD, who had ordered the assessment. They understand psychology and the mind as much as I understand the Inuit version of touch football.

But this is just baseless prejudice.

I’d recommend Timothy D. WILSON (2002): Strangers to ourselves. Discovering the adaptive unconscious. Harvard UP – for a take on the complexity of our brain.

Walter Mischel has noted the weak correlation between personality traits and behaviour, due in particular to the fact that such (big) attitudinal tests ignore situational influences. Yet situational influences may be very strong and counterintuitively so – see Claude M. STEELE (2010): Whistling Vivaldi and other clues to how stereotypes affect us. Norton.

And then there would be “deep culture” – culture transmitted non-verbally, and so different from each other, we literally have different “worldviews”. What we see, and how we organise such views to make sense of them varies markedly from culture to culture. See: Richard E. NISBETT (2003); The geography of thought. How Asians and Westerners think differently, and why.

Not to speak of the oldest excuse on earth: “He/she made me do it”. This is how Adam tried to wiggle out of the consequences of eating the forbidden Apple.